Tag:high key
High Key photography is basically an image against a white background with bright lighting to blow out or remove all the harsh shadows.
High key is used often when photographing models, flowers, babies, products (Apple love high key for their products), and other subjects where you want to convey a positive, happy impression. It’s the opposite of low key where you are conveying a dark, moody, foreboding scene.
Equipment
If shooting indoors you are going to need lighting to eliminate all shadows. You can shoot with continuous lighting or a flash but will need to keep your lighting temperature in the cool zone (over 5000 Kelvin). You will need three to four lights and a seamless white background to place your subject against. Place your subject against the background and light from all sides. You also don’t want the light bouncing off the background and creating all sorts of odd halos. Deborah Wolfe from Studio on a Shoestring recommends setting the camera at F11 and the background lights at F16
No lighting? Shoot Outside
If you don’t have lighting – you can still do high key simply by moving outside and shooting on a cloudy day. Place your subject against a background as uncluttered as you can and shoot with the cloudy sky behind them. The sky will be lighter than the subject and create a white background. Using a fill-in flash will help reduce shadows on your subject.